The present invention relates to a technology used in a development environment, in which a plurality of simulators execute a coordinated complicated simulation in the development of an embedded system.
An embedded system is a system composed of a mechanism constituting a control object, hardware for performing a control operation based on a physical quantity received from the mechanism and outputting a control value to the mechanism, and software which operates on the hardware. For example, an embedded system of an automotive vehicle is composed of an engine as a control object, an electronic device such as a microcomputer for controlling the engine, and software which operates on the microcomputer. Since the behavior of the software included in the embedded system strongly depends on the mechanism of the control object and the configuration of the hardware, it is necessary to analyze combined behavior of the mechanism, the hardware and the software.
In recent years, embedded systems have become more complicated to make automotive vehicles, electrical apparatuses and the like more reliable and more functional. Accordingly, to shorten a working period, parts of hardware and software are fragmented and specialized and development is simultaneously carried out at a plurality of sites. As fragmentation progresses, deficiency in performance and defect in specification which are ascertained when the parts are assembled are on the increase in addition to checking of the operation of each part. Thus, a delay in development period caused by a rework at a final stage before product shipment frequently occurs, thereby causing a problem of deteriorating development efficiency.
To solve this problem, it has been started to use a performance evaluation and verification technique by a simulation in which the mechanism, the hardware and the software are collaborated at the time of designing. In a mechanism/hardware/software collaborated simulation, a collaborative simulation at the overall product level is executed by mutually connecting different types of simulators since usable simulators differ depending on the configurations of the mechanism and the hardware to be simulated and simulation models created for specific simulators are already accumulated.
Conventionally, to execute a collaborative simulation in which a plurality of simulators are mutually connected, it is necessary to build an execution environment on a computer of each individual. For this, the following five problems exist. The first problem is that it is difficult to share design files and manage progresses due to the simultaneous development at a plurality of sites. The second problem is that cost for manually adjusting the simulators and connection parameters among the simulators increase since different simulators need to be connected.
The third problem is that cost for introduction and maintenance is high since a plurality of simulators are used. The fourth problem is that computational capability becomes insufficient since a plurality of simulators are operated. The fifth problem is a high risk of information leakage since design files are stored in each individual PC.
As one way of coping with the above problems, it is thought to unify development environments. As a known technology on unification of development environments, a computational environment providing service is disclosed in patent literature 1. In this service, a server on a network is rent to a user and the user obtains a computational environment by remotely controlling the server.